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From:Clara Jaeckel To:publiccomment; GRP-City Council Subject:public comment for 5/12/2025 city council meeting, agenda item 6B Date:Monday, May 12, 2025 8:04:46 AM This comment is for agenda item 6B. As a disclaimer, I am a member of the Police Advisory Committee, but I am making this comment as an individual resident. Tasers are often touted as a solution to concerns about police use of force. But Tasers are also potentially lethal weapons subject to the risk of misuse, with a history of disproportionate use against people of color. In 2017 Reuters investigated 1,005 cases of people who died after encounters where police used Tasers on them, and in at least 153 cases, coroners or medical examiners cited the Taser as a cause or contributing factor in the death. That study was published a year before Chinedu Okobi died from cardiac arrest after San Mateo County Sheriff's Deputy Joshua Wang deployed a Taser on him seven times. Following Mr. Okobi's death, there were widespread calls for a moratorium on Taser use in San Mateo County. But the Sheriff's Department did not listen and pressed ahead with the purchase of yet more Tasers. Against this background, I find the proposed long-term Taser purchase agreement by the Redwood City Police Department very unsettling. I urge you to consider that spending money on weapons for the Police Department doesn't do anything to address the root causes of crime, and there are many ways we could use our communal funds instead to meet residents' needs in ways that are proven to reduce crime. For example, crime rates are lower in neighborhoods with lower eviction rates; when funds are available to respond to calls to housing emergency hotlines; among youth who participate in summer employment programs; and near libraries. Let's put our investment into services that truly serve long-term community stability and public safety. Clara Jaeckel